kingdom in obedience to the young king’s authority. Despairing to accomplish their darling object during his life, the partisans of Mary resolved to cut off Murray by private means. During the year 1568, two persons were employed to assassinate him; but the design was discovered and prevented.[201] This did not hinder new machinations. Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, a nephew of the archbishop of St Andrews, undertook to perpetrate the deed. He was one of the prisoners taken at the battle of Langside; but, after being arraigned, condemned, and brought out to execution, he had his life given him by the regent, and was soon after set at liberty along with the other prisoners.[202] It is said that he was actuated by revenge, on account of an injury which he had received, by detaining one of his forfeited estates, or by the cruel manner in which his wife had been dispossessed of it.[203] Whether this was {166} really the case, or whether it was afterwards alleged to diminish the odium of his crime, and turn it away from his party, cannot perhaps be now certainly determined. But it does not appear, that any part of the regent’s conduct towards him was such as to afford the slightest alleviation of a crime, in the commission of which he burst the ties of gratitude, as well as of humanity and justice. On the other hand, there is ample proof that he was incited to make the attempt by the political party with which he was connected.[204] Having formed his resolution, {167} he deliberately followed the regent in his progress to Glasgow, Stirling, and Linlithgow; and, finding an opportunity in the last of these places, shot him through the body with a musket‑ball. The wound proved mortal, and the regent died the same evening. While some of his friends, who stood round his bed, lamented the excessive lenity which he had shown to his enemies, and particularly to his murderer, he replied, with a noble and christian spirit, that nothing would ever make him repent of an act of clemency.[205]